


Balance of Power

by eve11



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 20:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/pseuds/eve11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has a plan to save a xenophobic society from itself. If only he could remember what it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance of Power

Commander Zet-three-five heard the intruder well before she saw him.

"Metrensis Three! The Flickering World! Spins so fast on its axis that a day lasts four hours and seventeen minutes. Four hours and seventeen minutes! Can you imagine? Well of course you can; you lot are used to it, but for the rest of us it's really quite astonishing."

He sounded like a nervous tour guide. She rounded the corner and encountered the security detail who had detained him. He was taller than most of them and was looking at their eyes, not their guns. He seemed similarly unintimidated by their combat armor, gloves and helmets. He himself was strangely dressed; he looked like a relic academe who'd wandered out of one of the college houses.

His eyes flicked to her immediately when she came into view, noting her uniform and stance, but he didn't stop talking. "I've felt a lot of planets spinning under my feet, you know, and this is by far the"--he drummed his fingers in the air, eyes never leaving Zet's face--". . . . spin-niest of them all."

The trouble was, the nearest college house was two planets away. The other trouble was, Metrensis III was an industrial moon. Its sole purpose was power generation and distribution to the rest of the regime worlds. Metrensis didn't have tourists; it had security and saboteurs. And this man was definitely not security.

Which meant he was a saboteur. A very chatty saboteur. And male, which was odd but not unprecedented; the terror groups were recruiting more and more of them these days. Zet-three-five did not buy his innocent act for a second. The constant words and constant movement were nothing but calculated nonchalance to keep the detail off their guard.

As if to confirm her beliefs, the intruder smiled at her, recognizing both her suspicion and her authority, and still trying to deflect. "What is also astonishing is just how much trouble one can get into in a day here--oof!"

At Zet's nod, security officer Tek-two-nine hit him again, forcing him down on his knees this time.

"Secure him," Zet ordered, and was inwardly pleased when the detail didn't hesitate. His wandering hands were cuffed behind his back, and Tek pressed the barrel of her rifle against his neck.

The prisoner coughed, head bowed, and sucked in an uncomfortable breath.

"Quite a lot of trouble," he informed the tiles on the floor.

"Who do you work for?" Zet-three-five asked calmly, picking a spot of lint off her pristine dress uniform. "The Underground? The Seminal Sisterhood? Look at me when I speak to you. You were so keen on that a moment ago." She grabbed a fistful of his hair to bring his eyes back into view. Her hand brushed his forehead and he stiffened, genuinely distressed.

"No, don't--" he started, but it was too late.

 _box blue box green world smiling red hair box run fire death box stars blue box blue_

She gasped and released him, the cascade of images echoing through her mind and sending her reeling. When her vision cleared, he was looking right at her.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

" _Psi!_ " she alerted, her mind still in shock. She was relieved to see Tek-two-nine enact the correct emergency protocol, smashing the butt of her rifle into the intruder's cheek and sending him insensate to the floor.

 

**

 _"They're not telepathic," the Doctor said. "Not really, not in the way you'd think. But they are extraordinary psychic sponges."_

 _"I'm sorry," Amy countered. "Did you say 'psychic sponge'?"_

 _"Not actual sponges. But yes, they're absorbers. Most of them, anyway. That's why the regime is so xenophobic, and so keen to keep control over its telepathic minority. Traditional psi defenses don't work against an absorber; they cut through everything all at once."_

 _"And what's an absorber when it's at home?" Rory asked._

 _"They don't project anything, but they enhance the telepathic projections of others. Thoughts, experiences, memories; they draw them out and--well. Swallow them up, I suppose."  
_

**

 

"I want names."

Bright light streamed into his eyes. He squinted, trying to make out shapes but the light and the pounding headache behind his eyes made it difficult to concentrate. There was a vaguely humanoid-shaped blur in front of him. Was someone asking him something? The blur half-resolved into a woman. He thought he might recognize her. He tried to raise a hand to shield his eyes but found his wrists cuffed behind his back. Why couldn't he remember what was going on?

The woman nodded her head at something behind him and he realized too late there was someone else in the room. Pain exploded across his temple from an unseen blow and he nearly retched.

"Names! Starting with yours, psi. I'll get them one way or another."

Name. No harm in giving them a name. It might stop them from hitting him, which was definitely a good thing in his book. "I . . . " he started, and trailed off. Name. What was . . .

Fear seized him and he sat up, short of breath. "How . . . how long have I been here?"

She leaned closer. She had brown eyes. She was casually pulling her left hand out of a sleek black leather glove, picking at each of the fingers in turn. Panic shot through him and he had no idea why.

"I don't want to do it this way any more than you do," she said. "But I am willing to make sacrifices for the safety of my people."

He closed his eyes. In the back of his mind there was a safe . . . a safe word, safe as houses, a metal box with a combination that at some point he had willfully forgotten. He forced the image away. He heard the woman crack her knuckles in front of him.

"Shall we start again?" she said.  


 

**

 _"They **eat** memories?" Rory was appalled._

 _The Doctor just waved a hand. "It's hard to erase memories permanently. But they stir things up; they can't help it. Anyway, you two haven't got anything to worry about. Not a telepathic bone in your bodies. They can't enhance something that isn't there."_

 _"So they can't hurt us," Amy said._

 _The Doctor frowned. "You can't hurt them either."_

**  


  
"Where is the psi terrorist Kev-five-two? What are the Sisterhood's plans?"

A shock of icy water accompanied the question, drenching him in the freezing room. He sputtered and coughed, his arms pinned between the wall and the back of the chair, his stiff fingers tightening uselessly in the cuffs and scraping against the concrete. The woman knelt in front of him and he flinched away automatically. He remembered her eyes and her hands. His hearts kicked in his chest as he focused on her hands.

She was wearing black gloves this time, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"What are the Sisterhood's plans?" she asked again. Her face was drawn and weary and hard.

"Sisterhood," he said. His teeth chattered. "I don't know . . . any . . . sisterhood."

She casually slammed his head back against the wall and held him there while she examined his eyes, pulling his lids apart with gloved fingers and scrutinizing his autonomic responses.

"I don't believe you," she decided, releasing him. "I scraped that memory last week. You've had plenty of time to recover."

"But you haven't, Zet-three-five." Water dripped down his face into his mouth and he spat it out. He remembered her name, for now. He didn't remember being here for a week, not even a flash of a week on Metrensis III. He didn't remember a Sisterhood. There was a hole in his mind, a cluttered swath of psychic rubble that needed to be rebuilt, and there was only one way it could have happened. He knew that much.

"You're killing yourself over me," he said.

"Then I'll do my best to make it worthwhile. You can think about that." She stepped back and kicked the chair sideways, sending him crashing to the wet floor. Pain shot through his shoulder and he bit back a cry, his vision going grey. "Or you can just tell me," she continued. "Why did you come here?"

A memory surfaced, or a warning, or a hope. _There's still time. Hold on for a while longer._

"I don't remember," he gasped.

Some time later, he remembered a woman's bare fingers at his temple, and both of them screaming.

 

**

 _"Revolution, hand-crafted to order?" the Doctor said, meeting each face in turn across the rickety table. Outside, searchlights panned across the dark night sky, illuminating watchtowers at the psi ghetto's edge and farther on, the distant city skyline. "What do you take me for?"_

 _"We've heard the legends," Kev said. "And we have your transport. You won't see it again unless you help."_

 _"Well," the Doctor set his jaw and stood, straightening his arms and leaning widespread hands on the table. "If you want my help, first you have to stop making bombs."_

**

 

 _weapons bombs sisterhood Amy Rory TARDIS box blue box run_

A voice echoed around him, hard and urgent and laced with agony.

"A weapon. The Sisterhood are building a weapon?"

 _Sarah Rose Martha box blue box fire hurts run sky sparkling time Kev build_

Something was tearing indiscriminately through his head, a psi pressure vacuum hurtling his memories around like so much detritus. He tried to build a wall and it burst before it could form.

 _power station moon oh Donna run blue stars box blue box_

It hurt so much he could hardly breathe. There was something he could try to stem the pain--a barrier, a wall? He tried to build a wall and it burst before it could form. A voice overlaid the cyclone, a woman's voice.

"What kind of weapon?"

 _spinning danger vortex box run death_ \--and then it stopped.

He felt fingers pressed so hard against his temples they were trembling. Then they released him abruptly into a cottony fog of dense silence. Bright lights smeared comet trails across his vision as his head fell forward. He tried to shield his eyes and found his hands cuffed roughly behind his back. He blinked away streaming tears, trying to bring shattered thoughts into focus. He had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there.

There was a woman in front of him, picking herself up off the floor. She had brown eyes and wore a disheveled uniform of some kind. Her cheeks were hollow, her face gray. She was staring at him in shock, broken. He wondered what had happened to her.

"What have you done?" she asked. She reached for him with bare hands and he instinctively flinched away from her, panic chasing away half-formed thoughts.

She touched him--skin on skin--and nothing happened.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In the wreck of his mind there was a safe . . . a safe word, safe as houses, a metal box with a combination that he willfully remembered.

"I think I've just saved your life," he said. Spots swam in his vision and his hearing went fuzzy. "Who are you?"

She swayed and fell again. Before he blacked out he saw the door behind her burst open and a set of strangers storm in.

 

**

 _"It works! It works!" Val-six-three charged into the abandoned storehouse. Her mother held back at the doorway, keeping a watchful eye as the child raced around the strewn jumble of spare parts, wires and cobbled-together tech that took up the majority of the room._

 _"That's brilliant news!" The Doctor extricated himself gingerly from the guts of the psychic dampener, goggles askew, beaming at the girl as she stopped short in front of him. "Let me see, eh?"_

 _Val turned immediately around and sped into her mother's arms. Kev-five-two hugged her so fiercely, it was a wonder she'd ever let go._

**

 

"Doctor!"

A new voice. Someone needed a doctor, and he had a sinking suspicion it may have been him. He blinked his eyes open. He didn't remember closing them. A man with short, spiky hair was kneeling in front of him. The man reached for him with bare hands and he cried out in alarm. "Don't! Don't touch, please--"

To his surprise, the man listened. His hand hovered and fell.

"Doctor, it's all right," he said. "The dampener's working. I won't hurt you. I mean--I wouldn't anyway. Not a telepathic bone in my body, remember?"

Doctor. That was him; he was the Doctor. "I don't . . . I've forgotten something, I think. What's your name?" He sniffed, trying to relax his muscles and control his shock response, but all that did was reassert a stabbing pain in his shoulder and he grimaced, letting his head fall forward.

"Just hang on," the man said. "Amy's getting a key to the handcuffs."

The man reached out a hand again, brushing the Doctor's forehead. He shuddered involuntarily, but it was just a warm touch. He let the man smooth his hands across his forehead, carding his fingers through his hair. Thoughts skittered around his head and he was having a hell of a time chasing them down. Amy. Amy and . . . "Rory?" he asked, looking up.

"Yeah, it's me." Rory smiled. "Hello. Sorry the revolution took so long."

A lanky redhead appeared at Rory's side. "Key," she said, waving it triumphantly, and stopped in her tracks. "Oh my god, Doctor."

"It's all right," he said, looking past her as she recovered and set to freeing his hands. There was a woman a few steps away, helping another one to her feet. Names fled; he couldn't keep them. That one was a terrorist and the other one was a torturer, or maybe it was the other way around. They should have been angry. Violent. But for this moment at least they were just staring quietly at each other's hands, their fingers touching.

"I think," the Doctor said, leaning heavily against Rory and the other one as they helped him up. "I think we've won."

 

**

 _"It's a stop-gap fix. But it's enough to get you talking instead of shooting, don't you think?"_

 _"It's brilliant," Kev's eyes shone as she studied the device, though he knew she would never admit to tears. "How much power would it take to broaden the effect?" she asked._

 _"Depends. How far does the Sisterhood want it to go? The rest of the ghetto? The next city over?"_

 _Kev smiled. "For the first time since her birth I can touch my child without harming her. I want it to cover the whole of the worlds."_


End file.
